QUINCY – The MBTA has found a buyer for its damaged wharf at the Quincy shipyard, but the future of the historic ship docked there is still uncertain.

Fore River Recycling, a subsidiary owned by shipyard developer Jay Cashman, has offered $1.1 million to buy nearly 12 acres of land and water rights from the MBTA. The property, which abuts 26 acres that Cashman already owns, is the former site of the Fore River ferry terminal and current docking location for the USS Salem, the former Navy cruiser that has long symbolized Quincy’s shipbuilding history.

The T decided to sell its shipyard property, which comprises about seven acres of land and five acres of water rights, after a water-main break damaged its wharf and sea wall last fall. The damage prompted the T to close the USS Salem to the public as well as shut down the Fore River ferry service permanently.

The Salem, owned by a private nonprofit called the U.S. Naval Shipbuilding Museum, has leased the Quincy water space from the T since the 1990s, offering popular tours and programs on board. The T has said the buyer of its property will assume responsibility for all repair liabilities at the wharf and of the single existing tenant, the USS Salem.

Alan Perrault, a manager of Fore River Recycling, said his company hasn’t yet decided what to do with the T property, and he didn’t want to comment on whether his firm would continue leasing out space to the USS Salem.

“The bid is under review, so it’s premature for me to say what we would or wouldn’t do with the Salem,” Perrault said.

Michael Condon, the Salem’s executive director, could not be reached for comment Thursday. In the past, Condon has said the ship must reopen either in Quincy or another shipyard, or else it could be headed to a scrap yard.

The USS Salem was built at the Quincy shipyard in the 1940s. The Navy commissioned it in 1949 and decommissioned it in 1959. It served for a time as flagship of the U.S. Sixth Fleet in the Mediterranean and was used in the filming of the 1956 British war movie “Battle of the River Plate.” In the film, the ship stood in for the German “pocket” battleship Admiral Graf Spee, which was sunk by the British off Montevideo, Uruguay in 1939.

In 1994, the Salem returned to Quincy and a year later opened as a museum ship.

Although the Navy conducts annual inspections of the ship, Condon said the nonprofit owns the ship and has run out of money since it closed to the public last fall.

The T has agreed to spend about $9,600 per month to help maintain the USS Salem, by paying its electricity, heating and other costs, until the sale of the property is finalized. Joe Pesaturo, a spokesman for the T, said Thursday that the sale should be closed next month.

Page 2 of 2 - Fore River Recycling, a subsidiary of Quincy Shipyard, a company owned by Cashman, submitted its $1.1 million bid by Wednesday, which was the T’s bidding deadline. No one else put in a bid.

If the sale happens, Cashman would own about 38 acres of shipyard property. Parcels owned by Quincy Shipyard house companies such as Sterling Equipment, Fore River Recycling, Patriot Renewables and Jay Cashman Inc. Quincy Shipyard also leases out warehouse space to the New England Aquarium and Bluefin Robotics.

Car dealer Daniel Quirk owns the biggest piece of the shipyard – more than 80 acres of land that spreads into Braintree. The Massachusetts Water Resources Authority owns about 11 acres in between the Quirk and Cashman properties.

Twin Rivers Technologies owns roughly 40 acres of shipyard property north of the Fore River Bridge.